Attacks kill more than 30 across Iraq

IRAQ

Kim Gamel, Associated Press

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Photo: Hadi Mizban, AP

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Minibus driver Abdul Kareem Hussein, left, is consoled by his brother after a roadside bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 22, 2009. The blast hit the bus, carrying Iraqi high school students on their way to their final exams on Monday, police said, the deadliest in a series of blasts that killed several people in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) less

Minibus driver Abdul Kareem Hussein, left, is consoled by his brother after a roadside bombing in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 22, 2009. The blast hit the bus, carrying Iraqi high school students on their way to ... more

Photo: Hadi Mizban, AP

Attacks kill more than 30 across Iraq

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Bombings and shootings killed more than 30 people and wounded at least 80 others across Iraq on Monday, including high school students on their way to final exams, part of a new round of violence ahead of next week's deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from urban areas.

The attacks pushed the three-day Iraqi death toll over 100, shattering a recent lull and adding fresh doubt to the ability of government forces to protect people without U.S. soldiers by their sides. American combat troops have already begun moving from inner-city outposts to large bases outside Baghdad and other cities.

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Overall levels of violence remain low, but Iraqi officials have warned that militants will likely carry out more attacks to erode public confidence in the government as the Americans pull out of cities by June 30 - the first step toward a full withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011.

Monday's violence mainly struck Shiite neighborhoods in the Baghdad area, starting with a roadside bombing of a minibus carrying high school students from Sadr City to their final exams.

Police said the attack killed at least three students and wounded 13 people. The U.S. military said only one civilian was killed and eight wounded. Conflicting casualty tolls are common following bombings in Iraq because victims are often taken to multiple hospitals.

A bomb planted under a car also exploded on a road leading to a checkpoint that controls access to a bridge into Baghdad's central Green Zone, killing at least five people and wounding 20, according to police and hospital officials.

The U.S. military put the casualty toll at two killed and six wounded.

A roadside bomb later targeted a police patrol in another mainly Shiite district in eastern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 25, police said, although the U.S. military said just two were killed.

Hours later, a parked motorcycle loaded with explosives blew up in an open-air public market in an impoverished, predominantly Shiite area northeast of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 22, police and hospital officials said.

A suicide car bomber also targeted the mayor's offices in Abu Ghraib, a predominantly Sunni district west of Baghdad, killing seven civilians, police said.

The car exploded before reaching the government building, damaging a nearby U.S. vehicle that was providing security for a meeting, U.S. military spokesman Maj. David Shoupe said, giving a lower casualty toll of four killed along with 10 wounded, including three U.S. soldiers.

North of the capital and close to the Iranian border, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army patrol, killing three Iraqi soldiers near Khanaqin, according to the security headquarters in Diyala province.

Gunmen also killed at least seven people in separate attacks in the northern city of Mosul, including a woman and four Iraqi security forces, according to separate police reports.

The Iraqi officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

The violence came two days after the year's deadliest attack - a truck bombing that killed at least 75 people in a mainly Shiite Turkomen near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.